> If any of those people were politically connected

Connection works both ways. You can be your superior's lapdog on Monday and jailed for being so cordial that he thinks you are trying to take over his position — I mean, taking bribes — by Wednesday.

Given how this man stayed out of trouble for 30 straight years before finally being apprehended, I feel this could be exactly what happened. He probably had some political leverage to keep the prosecutors looking the other way. And the moment he lost his leverage — maybe his superiors changed their minds about him, maybe he stepped on the toes of someone, who knows — they went after him.

What happens in countries with no rule of law is rule of power hierarchies. A regional party boss would have his trusted deputes running things, who have their underlings, they underlings have their preferred business partners (police chiefs, businessmen, prosecutors, control authorities) and so on. A bribe at any level is always redistributed upwards.

Sometimes the big guy falls out of favor with bigger guys, and then the whole structure is up for grabs. The whole vertical is massacred (sometimes literally) while new people take over from the top down. Often what's visible happens a few degrees removed from the actual cause.

There's understanding among the ruling class and much of the populace that it's just How Things are Done. But moments like that give you public trials with executions that make some naïve Westerners clap.